The Ghost of Causton Abbey is the first episode of the twentieth series of Midsomer Murders and first aired May 03, 2018.
The village of Causton is buzzing at the opening of a new brewery on the site of a famously cursed Abbey. Why is it cursed? Because a monk was "accused of poisoning people with his beer and was boiled alive in his own cauldron and he cursed the place. Legend has it that anyone who drinks beer here will come to a bad end." With the unveiling of a new beer, excitement turns to fear when a modern man is found boiled to death in one of the vats just like Brother Josef. Barnaby was at a taste testing on the site the night before and covers the case.
This is also the first episode for new Pathologist, Dr. Fleur Perkins.
Tropes:
- Alcoholic Parent: Emani makes beer but also drinks far too much. Her alcoholism means she's neglecting her step-children and abusing her husband. This is resulting in the kids wetting the bed and being emotionally abused. Jenny reveals her mother was also an alcoholic parent.
- The Alcoholic: Emani's drinking problem is part of the motive for her murder.
- Cooked to Death: Brewer Adam Osoba is found boiled to death in a vat of his own beer.
- Domestic Abuse: The female-on-male version. When Amani Taylor is found dead with severe injuries, the detectives' initial assumption is that she was being abused by her husband. It turns out that her drinking problems made her severely abusive to her husband. He accepted it because he didn't think she was harming the kids from his previous marriage, but his ex-wife discovering that it was still severely traumatising to them led to two murders.
- Little Dead Riding Hood: Barnaby is reading Little Red Riding Hood to his daughter. As he reads, the scene cuts to Emani Taylor wearing a long red scarf/cape while being stalked by the murderer through the overgrown gardens of the abbey at night. Barnaby's narration of the story continues over the top of the action as she is killed.
- Murder by Mistake: Adam's death is the first but it's an accident, the killer was trying to kill Emani and Adam came upon the killer in the brewery. He falls into the vat during the struggle after being stabbed by the knife meant for Emani.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: DS Winter totally fails to get a Hamlet reference:Sylvia Winters: There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio.
DS Winter: It's Jamie actually.
